


I am a Soul Longing

by feritas



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, giving them the hopeful ending they deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22614520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feritas/pseuds/feritas
Summary: Rey has spent the last two years searching the galaxy for clues about how to bring Ben back. Now, finally, it seems she has a solid lead. The planet Xolutel is said to be a vergence in the Force, and myth has it there's a hidden temple where worshipers of the Force were granted their deepest desires. No matter how slim the possibility, Rey owes it to Ben and herself to check it out. She's not known to give up easily.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	I am a Soul Longing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ceallaigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceallaigh/gifts).



> Hope you like it Ceallaigh! I had a fun time writing it.

_I am a soul longing to sit beside the bright hearth, and_

_To be brought back to life; all I need is to hear from your lips_

_The murmur of my name repeated throughout the night_

* * *

There is nothing unusual about the appearance of the cave entrance. Nothing that would distinguish it from any other that Rey has ever come across. It’s just an opening, a slight gash against the marbled granite of the wall. If she hadn’t been looking for it specifically, it would be almost impossible to notice.

But Rey had been searching.

The jedi texts lay nestled in the satchel strapped to her hip along with the black hilt of her saber—a comforting and familiar weight. She has spent the last two years pouring over the texts, hunting down any further knowledge about convergences; places in the galaxy especially susceptible to the Force. Like Ach-To and its dark mirror cave, or like—like Exegol. She trips over the word, even within the confines of her own mind, like a glitch in a holocam recording, unable to focus on it.

Her research has led her here, to a planet whose name is not on any star-chart in the Falcon’s database, nor on any of the charted hyperspace lanes. Its name had appeared faint and blurred on a piece of parchment she’d scavenged from the ruins of a jedi temple on _Tython_.

_Xolutel._

A planet said to house the ruins of an ancient temple predating the Jedi Order, used by a race of people who worshiped the living Force. A place where the living Force was strong. The notes had mentioned myths of wishes being granted to worshipers. Rey’s not sure if she’d believed it, but it had been a lead on getting Ben back. There had been so few of them, despite her access to the jedi texts, and her calls for help had gone unanswered by the jedi. The parchment had also had a set of coordinates, set in code which she’d been able to decipher.

The last thing she’d done is record a holo for Finn letting him know where she was heading before boarding the Millenium Falcon and setting out for the Unknown Regions. She’d relied heavily on her instincts in the Force to get here, as there was no astromech droid or navigation computer that could help her. When the planet’s blue-green atmosphere had appeared far below the Falcon’s viewpoint, she’d hardly believed her eyes.

Now she takes stock of her surroundings, of the humid air, dense enough it feels like she is breathing in water, the jungle alive with the nighttime sounds of animals and insects. Extending her awareness, Rey closes her eyes and feels an energy move through her, that energy that binds all living things, that weaves itself between the dark and the light, death, and decay. She has not been on a planet that has felt so _alive_ in the Force since her time on Ach-To, and it is like a balm to her weary spirit.

She blinks, awareness once again narrowing down to the breath in her lungs and the sweat beading on her forehead. Turning back towards the cave, it’s dark entrance calls to her, something pulling her forward, urging her to go inside. Finally, after so much searching, she has arrived. Rey takes one last look at the open sky and the tapestry of unknown stars glittering high above the treetops.

“I’m coming,” she whispers.

Her lone figure slips through the narrow opening, and then vanishes altogether from view.

* * *

The walls of the cave press in around her, sharp edges of stone scraping against the bare flesh of her arms as she pushes onward. She can’t tell if it’s always been like this or if this used to be some sort of tunnel that has collapsed with time. Some distance later a breeze ruffles the hair at her temple, moments before the tunnel widens out into an antechamber.

With a click her saber hums to life, the blade casting the room in golden light. The walls are covered in glyphs, words and pictures carved into the black stone. Rey lifts her saber higher, peering at a certain symbol that is repeated again and again, two overlapping circles with a line running through them contained within a larger circle. If this were any other time she would stop and spend hours trying to decipher the symbols, try to figure out this ancient language. For now, she turns away, exploring the rest of the room.

At the end of the room a set of stairs leads further down into the earth, a chill emanating from the darkness. There is nothing else but the sounds of her own footsteps as Rey makes her way down the stone-carved steps. Time passes strangely, for it feels like hours since she started her descent, though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes. The saber lights her way, casting her shadow along the wall behind her, a silent companion.

At some point a soft sound catches her attention—she hears the waves before she sees them, the sound of water gently lapping at a shore. A few steps later the stairs end and the ground beneath her feet feels familiar, sand beneath the soles of her boots. An underground lake greets her, illuminated in shades of cerulean by pockets of bioluminescent algae that line the walls and ceiling. Their radiance is reflected on the still surface of the water, creating miniature galaxies before her.

She feels it again, the Force calling her forth, across the lake. There is no shore on the opposite side, only the roughhewn walls of the cave. And as she looks around she realizes there is nothing else besides the sandy shore and the still waters of the water ahead of her. Rey deliberates, deciding what it is she must do. A moment later, resolved, she unwinds the cloth wraps from her arms and unbuckles the satchel from her hip, setting them both down on the ground. Her saber she leaves clipped to her belt.

The water is cool but not frigid when she wades in, inching up her thighs with each step she takes. The gradual submersion is so different from the sudden fall she took back on Ach-To, when the shock from the frigid waters had driven the breath from her lungs. And afterwards she remembers who it was she had sought out.

A warm fire, dark eyes in a lean face, fingertips touching across galaxies. She lets the memories flow forth, lets herself remember Ben. It hurts, still, even after everything. But, if she succeeds here, she’ll see him again. She has to believe in that.

Soon enough she’s treading water, watching the ripples caused by her movement grow larger until they fade out amidst the water’s bioluminescent glow. Rey takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with oxygen before she dives beneath the water’s surface. There’s a slight sting when she opens her eyes, but the water is clear. The algae light her way as she dives towards another opening in the far wall. This one is bigger than the cave’s entrance, wide enough to be considered a tunnel. With nowhere else to go, she dives deeper.

Her lungs begin to burn for air the longer she swims, the tunnel seeming to go on and on. It’s completely submerged, with no pockets of air that she could use to alleviate the pressure building in her chest. She follows her instincts when a fork in the path appears, taking a split-second to think before turning right. Rey feels worry begin to prickle at the base of her neck, arms starting to tire from the strain of swimming. She’s too far to turn back now, she doesn't have enough time or air to make it to the lake. The edges of her vision are starting to turn dark at the edges, how much lo—

Some ways forward, beyond the darkness lies a circle of light at the top of the tunnel. She uses the last of her oxygen to paddle harder towards it, arms aching. She feels sweet air rushing into her lungs as she breaks the surface, gasping for breath, hair having come undone and laying in strands across her face and shoulders. She stretches her arm out to use the Force to steady herself as she stumbles out of the water and back onto dry land.

There is only a second of reprieve before there is the sound of creaking metal, long unused, now moving. Rey stares, weary, as a metal automaton detaches from the far wall, stretching a metal clad leg to take its first step in centuries. It’s armored body lumbers towards her, a brilliant blue light emanating from a pit in the center of its chest.

She hopes, perhaps uselessly, that it is friendly.

A beam of energy shot from its chest towards her face says otherwise. Grunting, Rey dodges, body curling into a ball as she falls forward. She can’t feel any living energy emanating from the guardian, and nothing in the way of feelings to detect in the Force. Unclipping her saber, she ignites it and runs forward, aiming to disable the automaton. Her body falls into Ataru perfectly, legs dropping and arms extending as she brings her saber down against an armored forearm. Sparks explode, but her blade doesn’t cut through it, and instead she must brace herself against the force of its blow.

Back and forth she swings, dodging and parrying while the guardian gives chase, attempting to drive her against the wall. She’s never encountered a metal impervious to lightsaber blades, and each of her strikes bounces uselessly off its armor. Rey growls, feeling her desperation grow. The thought of failure is unacceptable.

Yelling, she extends her hand, a surge of power holding the guardian immobile.

“I didn’t come to steal,” she states, “I’m looking for something. The Force brought me here.”

Bit by bit she loosens her grip on the Force, allowing the guardian to move once again. It’s sightless visor turns towards her, but it makes no further moves in her direction. The blue light in its chest cavity dims, seemingly powering down. One second passes, and then another, without the guardian attacking her. It retreats, its lumbering body returning to its post at the front of a circular doorway. Rey watches as the light emanating from its chest darkens completely, body locking back into the position it had previously held for years.

The guardian seemingly appeased, Rey makes her way forward while walking swiftly across the room before arriving at a stone slab that covers the circular entrance. It must weigh at least a ton, and it’s carved to fit exactly into a circular groove at the base of the entryway. There’s no place to grip the stone in order to slide it open or closed without the use of the Force.

Rey closes her eyes holding the stone slab within her mind's eye and imagining it as a weightless object. She feels the corners of her lips turn up into a nostalgic smile. It’s just lifting rocks. Slowly the slab slides to the right, revealing the entrance.

She steps forward, saber held aloft gasping as she enters the chamber. The Force had been present but muted while she’d made her descent, but now it comes rushing forth in its entirety once again. Rey glances around, noting the stone pillars arranged around the circumference of the chamber. Searching for anything unusual, an artifact or strange object has her coming up empty.

There’s—nothing.

Extending her senses does not reveal any trap doors, no objects that would react with the force, no mystic portals or further metal guardians. The only other thing of note is a depression in the middle of the room which holds the same circular design she’d seen earlier in the cave. Apart from that, and her, there’s nothing else to distinguish this chamber from anything else ordinary. She feels a sob attempt to crawl its way up her throat.

This had been her best lead in months, she’s pursued every other option and landed at the same dead end. Shoulders hunched, she makes her way towards the center of the temple. The flesh along her arms is pebbled with cold as she sets about making a fire in the depression. With practiced hands she strikes open a synth fire stick, watching the flames grow into a proper fire. Sitting down with her legs crossed, Rey attempts to meditate, closing her eyes and breathing in deep.

“If there’s anyone here to listen, please, I—I lost someone very dear to me. I can go on alone but it’s so difficult. I’ve been so lonely. I just want him back, _please_ ,” she whispers.

There’s no response at first, just the hum of the Force beneath her skin. And then—not words so much as a _feeling._

_Open yourself up completely_

But she has opened herself up, she’s aware of the cycle of life and death on the plant, regeneration and decay, the dark and the light. Except, no, there is still something. Rey’s breath catches in her throat.

There’s a place in the back of her mind that has been cold and empty since Ben’s death. A wound in the very depths of herself where their force bond used to be. After Exegol, after the war, she’d blocked it out, the reminder too painful to bear. And now she must open herself back up to it. Bracing herself, Rey reaches within, bringing down piece by piece the wall she’d built in her mind.

The pain buffets her immediately and robs her of breath, as sharp as it had been in the days following Exegol. She grits her teeth, determined to follow through if this is what must be done. She hadn’t forgotten the pain, but she had forgotten how immediate it was, how cleanly it sliced through her mind. Some indeterminable time later, panting, she answers the unseen voice, “What’s next?”

_The bond. Balance, the Dark and the Light. Two that are one. Call again, and he will answer._

Rey wonders if it realizes the bond is broken, that it’s nothing more than the tattered remains of what had once been a silver chord threaded through both their souls. And yet Rey casts her senses out, scouring the universe for one half of her soul, calling out a harmony played in a chord only one other person could answer.

“Be with me Ben. Please, be with me,” she murmurs over and over.

It’s a mantra she repeats again and again, the words spilling from her lips like a fervent prayer. Rey continues, slipping further into meditation as the physical world falls away from her.

* * *

The floor is a tapestry of stars woven beneath her feet while the sky above her head swirls with clusters of nebulae. Glancing up, she sees a figure in the distance, though she can’t tell who it is, only that they are walking closer to her. But soon enough they begin to take shape, broad shoulders and a dark mane of hair.

Rey’s heart stops in her chest.

And then she is running, flying towards Ben as fast as she can, heedless of the circumstances, a spray of stars trailing in her wake. His face looks exactly the same as when she last saw him, eyes soft and the barest hint of a smile at the corners of his full mouth. The weight beneath her hands is solid and real, and she’s crying, arms circling his neck as she buries her face in the crook of his neck. 

And the bond is weakened, a shadow of its former self, but it's _there_ again, that diaphanous cord of light that wraps around her heart and leads straight to Ben's. Rey holds back a sob of happiness. 

“Hey sweetheart."

“I called and you came,” she cries, refusing still to let go of him.

“I was always with you, even when you couldn’t see me,” he murmurs, his breath warm against the shell of her ear.

At this confession she finally looks up, brow furrowing, while Ben’s eyes roam across her face. “But I called you once, immediately after, and I didn’t _see_ you.”

He looks away. “I thought it would be best if I didn’t. You were already hurting, and I thought seeing me would make it worse.”

 _No, seeing you vanish before my eyes was worse. Not feeling you in the Force for two years was horrible._ Rey feels the words bubbling up, though she doesn’t voice them. Instead she asks him, “Why’d you do it?”

And Ben Solo has the audacity to smile, eyes crinkling, when he answers. “Because I love you, Rey. There was never any other option.”

And Rey can sense the truth of that statement, it shines forth in his eyes and his tone and it sings in the currents of the Force. It fills her with an emotion she’s never felt before, sadness and elation in equal measure, fit to bursting.

“But you left me, even—even though you told me I wasn’t alone. Ben, what was I supposed to do?”

His smile turns sadder now, a shadow falling across his eyes. And no, no this isn’t how it's supposed to go. “Move on, I thought. You have so much to live for Rey, a whole life ahead of you. I know you can do it.”

“I _know_ I can, but Ben, I don’t want to do it. I’ve been searching for a way to save you for two years. I’m here for _you_ ,” she says.

She catches the dawning realization on his face. She’s not here—wherever here is—just to see him.

“Rey,” he says, full lips parting in shock.

“I’ve come back for you, don’t you see?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he argues, raking a hand through his hair. “You were supposed to live a long life, move on.”

“I do want those things, but with you Ben, don’t you see that?” Unless, and here Rey feels a dawning sense of dread. Unless he doesn’t want to return, because he’s made peace with his death. Has she come to interrupt his afterlife?

“Rey, whatever you’re thinking, stop it. You’re wrong,” he says, gripping her wrist loosely in his warm hand.

“Then why won’t you come back? Unless you don’t want to?”

Ben pauses, that somber gaze of his trained on her eyes, as if trying to decipher her. “You truly want me to?”

His worry and disbelief leak into the surrounding Force, and even without their bond Rey would be able to feel them keenly. Rey vows to herself, then and there, she will do everything possible to never hear him say those words in that tone of voice again. Even if it takes the rest of their lives.

“I have scoured the galaxy looking for a way to get you back.” She chews her lip, she’s thought of nothing but this moment for the past couple of years and yet the words get stuck in her throat. “You don’t have to be scared, I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

He’s looking at her like she’s hung the moon and the stars, and so for the first time in her life Rey is kissed by Ben Solo. The rough pads of his fingertips graze the edge of her jaw as his hand gently cup her face. His other arm wraps around her, strong and sure, bringing her even closer against him. She winds her fingers in the soft strands of his hair, marveling at the warm plushness of his lips against her own. When his tongue grazes the edge of her lips she doesn’t hesitate to open up for him, a quiet moan escaping from her.

She never wants this to end, so of course it must, and they break away from one another, panting from the effort.

“It’s alright, Rey, close your eyes,” Ben whispers, placing a feather light kiss against each of her eyelids.

“I love you too Ben,” she says, though she opens her eyes when she says the words. Watching the wonder and joy spread across his face is something she will keep tucked away and cherished in her memory forever, in this life and the next. She grips his hand tighter. “Come back with me. I want the chance to say it to you every day for the rest of our lives.”

He smiles at her, the light from a thousand stars reflected in his dark eyes, and it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

* * *

The next morning, although no one is around to see, two figures emerge side by side from the mouth of the cavern. They are holding on tight to one another’s hands.

They will never have to be alone again.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think, I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> Here are some cool reference links if anyone would like to check them out. 
> 
> [Vergences in the Force](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vergence)
> 
> [Tython](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tython)
> 
> [Hyperspace Lane](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyperlane)
> 
> [Temple Circle Symbol](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cd/b2/81/cdb2810c43c134dedc7027121ecec2c1.png)
> 
> [Inspo for the temple guardian](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Guardian)
> 
> [Lightsaber Form: Ataru](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Form_IV)


End file.
